The Swarm
Back to Races Buildings Units ''Giant Ant'' The Giant Ant is the basic builder of The Swarm. These builders are weak, and have no special ability. Build Skill 8 ''Husk'' Husks are basic infantry unit of The Swarm. They are like the Skeletons of the Undead. They are weak and fragile but highly resistant to piercing attacks. ''Scarab'' Scarabs are the Basic missile unit of The Swarm. They have fire damage. ''Scorpion'' ''Bone Catapult'' ''Scorpionman'' ''Scorpionpriest'' Strategy Overall: The Swarm are a mid-tier race in Warlords Battlecry 3, designed to overwhelm their opponents with a horde of low-level units. They are not as effective at this strategy as the Fey due to the limitations of their buildings, although they do have some other features that make them the most balanced horde race. ''The Race'' Units: The Swarm have a good mix of low level units, allowing them to rapidly spawn a fast moving attack force. (or bodyguard for the hero). The battle begins well enough with a mix of Husks and Scarabs causing real headaches for any opponent that doesn't boast a high fire resistance. From there however, production becomes a problem. (see Buildings) The high end Swarm units - Scorpionmen and Scorpionpriests - are extremely powerful and relatively cheap and fast to build. The Scorpionpriest ability to summon a fire elemental takes time to build mana, but often proves well worth the wait. Alternatively, a group of Scorpionpriests all casting Ring of Fire at once can devastate a horde or even a base in short order. (Send them into a horde or base, then change them to "Magic Attacker" and enjoy the show) Swarm fliers leave something to be desired - namely air-to-air capability. Aerial units with fire resistance can wreak havoc in the Swarm ranks. Buildings: Enter the real drawback for the Swarm. In addition to the time and expense of leveling your keep, your primary unit producing building also requires leveling. While the cost involved is reasonable, the time lost to this process is not. To mitigate this, the Swarm player really needs to build two or three of its unit producing buildings, one or two at level 2 or 3 to keep a steady stream of units pouring out, and a third to level up and yield the critical Scorpionmen and Scorpionpriests. Aside from this nightmare, the Swarm buildings serve their purpose well enough - the ability to drain resources from your opponent's mines is useful. ''Heroes'' Heroes: The Swarm enjoy a two skill synergy with the Warrior class, creating one of the most effective tank heroes in the game. This complements their unit set perfectly. For those that prefer a magic user, Lichelord is the best option, though it pales in comparison to the Warrior benefits. The synergistic Posion magic sphere can be abused with the Defiler or Lichelord with various supportive spells which could greatly help the race since many units have a posionous attack (the Melkor's Curse research also doubles the speed of poisoning to the enemy). Counters *The Swarm's primary unit production building must be upgraded to gain access to many new units. If they are not capable of breaking an enemy combination because they can't produce any of the newer units, they may be found in big trouble. The Undead are the absoute biggest culprit for this, they can shrug off any poison and pretty much render nearly every Swarm unit obsolete thanks to the Undead resistance to piercing (Husks are not enough and Scarabs and Bone Catapults are expensive to keep producing). If the Swarm player is playing a wizard, they better not have much intelligence or a lot of the horde will just become XP food for Wraiths and Shadows (both of which counter Scarabs and Scorpionpriests). Unfortunately for the Swarm, the Undead aren't the only problem. Dark Dwarves also make very powerful counters to the Swarm as the are immune to poison, can AOE the Swarm with a multitude of units and finally crush them to death with Golems. *Most Swarm buildings are absolutely enormous. It is fair to say that the Swarm have the largest buildings in the game (possibly other than the Wood Elf Tree of Life). Because of this, their effectiveness varies more from map to map than most other races. If the map is small, they may be in for a great struggle to gain ground and construct buildings. Alternatively, they may be found in a position where they can build few buildings without having to contruct further buildings a great distance away, giving other players a good opportunity to render them effectively helpless. *Flying units with resistance to fire can proceed to annihilate nearly any Swarm base as the Swarm's main missile unit is the Scarab and they lack decent air to air fliers (until lategame). Towers can't be upgraded to deal anything other than increased fire damage or the base magic damage, which is usually not enough to hold back fire resistant flying hordes. Pretty much any Dragon will spell doom for the Swarm player unless the Swarm player has their own Dragon. *The Swarm's tactics pretty much rely on Scarabs. Starve a Swarm player of gold and it is likely they won't be able to do anything about units with a spread attack like Hydras, Salamanders and particularly Giants (a lot of Swarm units have a vulnerability to crushing). *Catapults really ruin Swarm's day. They can devastate entire hordes whilst the Swarm have few tools to deal with them. The Swarm do have Bone Catapults and Scarabs, but they are both outranged and vulnerable to the crushing blows of a catapult. Lore